World

More Rocket Fire In Israel

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

April 28, 2000 / 9:48 AM EDT / CBS

Lebanese guerrillas Friday fired more rockets into Israel as the worst cross-border flare-up in a year continued.

Children playing soccer and adults buying bread scattered in panic as Lebanese rockets landed in the Israeli border city, where people had just emerged from a night in the bomb shelters.

One person was slightly hurt in another northern town.

Overnight, Israeli warplanes bombed two power stations in Lebanon into flaming wreckage, reports CBS News Correspondent Jesse Schulman. The show of toughness comes at a time when Israel is supposed soon to be leaving Lebanon for good.

Israel launched the air raids Thursday after guerrillas rocketed an Israeli border town, catching civilians in the open and killing one soldier. The Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack, its fiercest rocket attack in nearly a year on Israel's north. It killed an Israeli soldier and wounded 26 other people.

The Lebanese attack supposedly was a reprisal for the killing of two Lebanese civilians in shelling by Israel's allied militia in southern Lebanon Wednesday.

The familiar pattern of this latest border flare-up comes against an unfamiliar backdrop. Israel has begun preparations to pull out of Lebanon in July, ending two decades of costly occupation.

Most Israelis will be glad to see the troops out. This latest violence has many people here wondering, though, if the pullout will make things better or worse on the Lebanese border.

The sharp exchange of retaliatory fire raised fears of escalated fighting once Israel withdraws its troops from the buffer zone it set up 15 years ago in south Lebanon. Israel said the planned troop pullout by July 7 would not be delayed, but promised to hit back hard in response to any attacks on its northern towns.

In Friday's attacks, rockets fell in the town of Shlomi, a poverty-stricken border community near Israel's Mediterranean coast, injuring one person. Moments later, a sustained barrage targeted Kiryat Shemona, the biggest town on the Israel-Lebanon border, which was the main target of Thursday's rocket attacks.

All over the north, residents who had just emerged after a night in underground shelters were hastily ordered back into the shelters.

In Kiryat Shemona, the midmorning attack came as the streets were crowded with people shopping for the Jewish Sabbath, beginning at sundown. Children were outside playing football, and long lines had formed at bakeries when the heavy boom of rocket fire was heard, scattering customers.

Plumes of white smoke arose from rocket craters, and several fires broke out. The deputy mayor, Yitzhak Kakon, said four homes, two supermarkets and 15 cars were hit in the latest salvos, which continued for more than an hour.

In Lebanon, security officials -- speaking on customary condition of anonymity -- said some Katyushas were launched from the coastal area of Mansouri and that a few landeon the Lebanese side of the border near a United Nations observation post. No peacekeepers were hurt.

The overnight Israeli strikes on power installations in Beirut and northern Lebanon plunged large areas into darkness and carved a crater into the Beirut-Damascus highway, severing the main traffic artery between the Lebanese and Syrian capitals.

The targets and the timing of the attacks were chosen to minimize civilian casualties, Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland, chief of Israeli military operations, told a news briefing in Jerusalem, where video clips of the hits were shown.

Witnesses said at least three air-to-surface missiles shook people out of bed in a 2:30 a.m. attack at the Bsaleem power station, one of two major stations supplying the capital of 1.2 million with electricity. Two more explosions rocked the area 15 minutes later. Another two hit an hour after the initial strike.

Lebanese army anti-aircraft artillery lit up the night sky and black smoke billowed from Bsaleem, which sits on a hill in a northern suburb.

Israeli warplanes also attacked early Friday near the northern port city of Tripoli, Lebanon's second-largest city, targeting the power-generating plant in nearby Baddawi, witnesses said. Power was cut to Tripoli and surrounding areas.

Jets also struck southeast of Baalbek in eastern Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, a guerrilla stronghold. Witnesses reported a warehouse fire. The area was surrounded by guerrillas who blocked access. Israel's Eiland said the target was a guerrilla ammunition dump where Katyusha rockets and anti-tank missiles were stored.

The attacks were the most serious since June 24, when two civilians were killed in northern Israel. In February, northern residents were ordered into shelters for two nights amid tensions along the border.